I was born with a reading list i will never finish – Maud Casey

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Moby Dick – The Book That Conquered Me

I thought it was time to share the story of the only book that ever conquered me. It’s not a very long one. Or even that interesting.

I’d always wanted to read Moby Dick (or The Whale) by Herman Melville so back in high school i decided to give it a go. I borrowed it from the library and i started reading it. It was one of the most tedious things i have ever done. I can’t remember how far i got into it, however i know that they had barely set sail and i was already at least a third of the way in (the book is about hunting a whale and the first third of the book isn’t even about that!) and the library informed me that i wasn’t allowed to re-borrow the book anymore. After re-borrowing it two or three times (i can’t remember which), you aren’t allowed to re-borrow a book (obviously because if they didn’t have that rule you could just re-borrow a book forever and never let anyone else have a chance at reading it). You then have a waiting period until you are allowed to re-borrow it. Well, that had never happened to me before! Usually i only re-borrowed a book because i had greedily borrowed too many books for the amount of time i had to read and hadn’t started them yet. But essentially being barred from a book? I felt like a criminal!

I guess the whole experience wounded my pride and i wasn’t game to pick the book up again in case i was once again barred from borrowing it (maybe forever this time?) so i just got on with life, shaking my fist every now and then when i heard the book mentioned.

However since i received for Christmas last year a Kobo Touch eReader, this has opened up an opportunity for me to finally finish what was started. Moby Dick is a classic. Most classics are free eBooks. Even if i only read a chapter a month (i hope to achieve more than that) it will only take 11 years and three months (only). Yes, that is a long time. Who knows what i will be doing then, however i’m only young and will still be young then!

If i did it too quickly, i’d have to come up with a new life goal 😉

Are there any books that have conquered you? Or have you finally conquered a book?

I must admit I loved reading Moby Dick while studying the book back at university…A book, however, that has repeatedly conquered me is the Old Testament. I have set out to read it a number of times and always get stuck at the “begatting” part, ie so-and-so begat so-and-so etc

I’m afraid that I am a completist by nature, and so therefore I find it very hard to skip over sections in books. Somehow it would feel like cheating to me. It’s an irritating quirk of my personality, I suppose. But I just might try your advice, if I ever venture into reading the Old Testament again. Good luck hunting that great white whale!

Yes, i am the same. I am currently reading Anna Karenina and while i am enjoying it, there are some tedious parts. My Mum skipped a section of it but i can’t do that. Little bits at a time, i think that’s the way. Thank you!

I never had to read that one in high school but I added it to my list and I’m going to eventually give it a go. I have a soft spot in my heart for whales, not sure I want to read a book about whale hunting. i can’t even watch the show about that on the discovery channel! Here’s the one book I also didn’t read in high school, but just this year. I thought I would read more classics this year and it’s not working out so well for me. The Catcher In The Rye. UGH.

Good luck to you! If you finish it before me i will be so mad…haha, just kidding. I will be seriously impressed! Well there’s more detail about everything else than actual whale hunting so i think you should be okay. I haven’t read Catcher In The Rye so I’m interested to see what you thought of it. It’s actually on my to read list (which is never ending so whether i actually get around to it who on earth knows).